X-ray
The X-ray is perhaps the most well-known diagnostic imaging service. Physicians use them to see inside your body. The X-ray machine produces a high-energy beam that bones and dense tissue are unable to absorb, but which passes through the rest of your body. This produces an image that allows doctors to see your bones and any damage they may have suffered.
During an X-ray exam, different parts of the body allow varying amounts of radiation to pass through:
- Soft tissues in the body (such as blood, skin, fat and muscle) allow most of the X-ray to pass through and appear dark gray on the imaging medium.
- A bone or a tumor, which is denser than soft tissue, allows only a few of the X-rays to pass through and appears white on the X-ray. At a break in a bone, the X-ray beam passes through the broken area and the result within the image is a dark line in the white.